The Umpire Strikes Back

The game of college football may just see more flags flying during the game, and I don't mean the American flag. These are smaller yellow flags and they are thrown by guys dressed in black and white.

The NCAA rules committee approved several new additions to the rule book last week in an attempt to increase the sportsmanship of the game.

This includes a rule that increases the harshness of excessive celebration and taunting violations. In the proposal, a player taunting before crossing the goal line would be penalized from the spot of the foul. Teams would no longer be penalized to emphasize the team aspect of the game.

Does that mean that no flag will be thrown for holding so long as the whole offensive line is guilty?

The committee is also considering whether or not to evoke such fouls as live-ball penalties, meaning a deduction of points from a team's score. There could also be more leeway for officials in ejecting players for more flagrant personal fouls.

In an era of sports where officials take too large a role, the addition of these rules would only increase their influence. One of the goals behind many of the rules is to protect players from injury. The late hit penalty, outlawing horse-collar tackles and grabbing the face mask. That is understandable.

But the motivation behind the rules should not be to promote sportsmanship. That sounds silly, because all of the athletes should have sportsmanship. But that should not be a point upheld by the referees, that should be taken care of by the coaches and the players themselves.

Excessive celebration is the most worthless penalty in the game of football. Sportsmanship has no real impact on the game. The fact that a receiver merely points at a defensive back before stepping into the end zone has no effect on how many points he scores or the health of that defensive back. Maybe he should be suspended by the coach, but not penalized by the referee.

The one thing that the meeting did get right is relinquishing the rule that the visiting team must wear white. USC lost two of their six time outs when they wore their home red jerseys when playing at rival UCLA last year. The Trojans won regardless, but why should the color of a team's uniform affect the outcome of the game?

Here's a hint: it shouldn't.